Starting a thread because this could be responsive to any one of a few other active threads. I wanted to put forward a statistical analysis that I've been building for a while. The background is this: I had a conversation with a friend about Federer vs Nadal H2H (this was before Fed's run in 2017) and whether it indicates that Nadal is the better player, or that it's a bad matchup for Federer, or just that it's a statistical quirk, etc. I posited that *if* it is just a matchup issue, that Federer specifically has a style of play or mental hangup with Nadal, then there is an easy test. If instead of Federer vs Nadal, you look at (Federer vs Player X) vs (Nadal vs Player X) and keep changing X, Federer should win most of those. If he does, it suggests it is a matchup issue or statistical quirk. If Nadal wins most of those, on top of H2H, it suggests he is the better player.
So I picked a sample of Player Xs. I took every player who fit these criteria
1. They have finished YE Top 5 at least once in their career (so I'm only looking at elite opponents)
2. They have played both Federer and Nadal at least 5 times each (so I have a meaningful sample)
There are 15 such players as of today.
Djokovic, Murray, Wawrinka, Roddick, Del Potro, Hewitt, Ferrero, Moya, Ferrer, Davydenko, Soderling, Nishikori, Raonic, Dimitrov and Blake.
For each, I ran 3 numbers/stats
Stat 1. Career H2H, and whether 1 player (Federer or Nadal) has an edge. I give one of them an edge over the other if their winning %age is better by enough to generate at least 0.5 extra wins given the number of matches played (I use the lower matches played total, between Fed/Nadal). So, to give 2 examples:
Federer is 22-23 vs Djokovic, or 48.9%. Nadal is 24-26, or 48.0%.
(48.9%-48.0%) * (45) = 0.4 extra wins for Federer. That is less than 0.5, so I call that a "draw". They basically have the same record against Djokovic.
Federer is 14-11 against Murray, or 56%. Nadal is 17-7, or 71%.
(71%-56%) * (24) = 3.6. So Nadal has an edge of 3.6 games over Federer when it comes to the Murray H2H
Stat 2. H2H when the opponent was at his peak. To define peak, I looked at each opponent's year end rank, picked a meaningful cutoff point (such as "the 4 years where he finished in the top 5") and took the H2H only for those years. For example, I defined Peak Djokovic as the 5 year period where he had 4 YE #1 finishes, so I took the H2H over those 5 years. I call that H2H against Peak Djokovic. Then I did the same calc as above. Example
Federer is 9-16 (36%) against Peak Djokovic. Nadal is 7-16 (30%).
(36% - 20%) * (23) = 1.3, so Federer has an edge of 1.3 games over nadal when it comes to Peak Djokovic H2H
Note: for players like Hewitt, whose peak preceded both Fed and Nadal, I am not considering the years where he did not play Federer/Nadal in my definition of peak.
Stat 3. How much of the H2H was against the opponent's peak.
This is a simple one, it's just taking the # of matches from (2) divided by the number of matches from (1). Example, Federer has played Djokovic 45 times, and 25 were against Peak Djokovic. 25/45 = 56%. Nadal has played Djokovic 50 times, and 23 were against peak Djokovic. 17/50 = 46%. So Federer's Djokovic H2H is slightly more weighted to Peak Djokovic than Nadal's is.
I've included the chart, but analysis will be in a separate post
(http://iblogforcookies.com/peak.PNG ... in case the embed is too small to read)
So I picked a sample of Player Xs. I took every player who fit these criteria
1. They have finished YE Top 5 at least once in their career (so I'm only looking at elite opponents)
2. They have played both Federer and Nadal at least 5 times each (so I have a meaningful sample)
There are 15 such players as of today.
Djokovic, Murray, Wawrinka, Roddick, Del Potro, Hewitt, Ferrero, Moya, Ferrer, Davydenko, Soderling, Nishikori, Raonic, Dimitrov and Blake.
For each, I ran 3 numbers/stats
Stat 1. Career H2H, and whether 1 player (Federer or Nadal) has an edge. I give one of them an edge over the other if their winning %age is better by enough to generate at least 0.5 extra wins given the number of matches played (I use the lower matches played total, between Fed/Nadal). So, to give 2 examples:
Federer is 22-23 vs Djokovic, or 48.9%. Nadal is 24-26, or 48.0%.
(48.9%-48.0%) * (45) = 0.4 extra wins for Federer. That is less than 0.5, so I call that a "draw". They basically have the same record against Djokovic.
Federer is 14-11 against Murray, or 56%. Nadal is 17-7, or 71%.
(71%-56%) * (24) = 3.6. So Nadal has an edge of 3.6 games over Federer when it comes to the Murray H2H
Stat 2. H2H when the opponent was at his peak. To define peak, I looked at each opponent's year end rank, picked a meaningful cutoff point (such as "the 4 years where he finished in the top 5") and took the H2H only for those years. For example, I defined Peak Djokovic as the 5 year period where he had 4 YE #1 finishes, so I took the H2H over those 5 years. I call that H2H against Peak Djokovic. Then I did the same calc as above. Example
Federer is 9-16 (36%) against Peak Djokovic. Nadal is 7-16 (30%).
(36% - 20%) * (23) = 1.3, so Federer has an edge of 1.3 games over nadal when it comes to Peak Djokovic H2H
Note: for players like Hewitt, whose peak preceded both Fed and Nadal, I am not considering the years where he did not play Federer/Nadal in my definition of peak.
Stat 3. How much of the H2H was against the opponent's peak.
This is a simple one, it's just taking the # of matches from (2) divided by the number of matches from (1). Example, Federer has played Djokovic 45 times, and 25 were against Peak Djokovic. 25/45 = 56%. Nadal has played Djokovic 50 times, and 23 were against peak Djokovic. 17/50 = 46%. So Federer's Djokovic H2H is slightly more weighted to Peak Djokovic than Nadal's is.
I've included the chart, but analysis will be in a separate post
(http://iblogforcookies.com/peak.PNG ... in case the embed is too small to read)